Vice President Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will join her on the 2024 Democratic ticket for the White House, despite the pair previously having wildly differing views on the Second Amendment and gun control. 

“I am proud to announce that I’ve asked @Tim_Walz to be my running mate. As a governor, a coach, a teacher, and a veteran, he’s delivered for working families like his. It’s great to have him on the team. Now let’s get to work,” Harris posted to X on Tuesday morning. 

Walz is in the midst of his second term as Minnesota governor, and previously served as a U.S. congressman in the state from 2007-2019, where he represented a largely rural population. Back when he served as a congressman in a district that typically voted red, Walz was seen as a champion of gun rights and hunting.  

The National Rifle Association awarded Walz an A rating for his commitment to protecting gun ownership and rejecting gun control laws pushed by left-wing members of the Democratic Party. 

TRUMP CAMP SAYS HARRIS-WALZ ‘DANGEROUSLY LIBERAL’ TICKET IS ‘EVERY AMERICAN’S NIGHTMARE’

“Tim Walz is a gun owner. He grew up hunting and spent 24 years in the Army National Guard. Now in Congress, Tim stood up time and time again for the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun owners and sportsmen. It’s why the NRA gave Tim an ‘A’ rating,” a 2010 political ad declared. 

Walz’s celebration of the Second Amendment included earning him a spot on Guns & Ammo magazine’s 2016 list of 20 top politicians for gun owners. 

VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS NAMES MINNESOTA GOV. TIM WALZ AS HER RUNNING MATE: AP

“A Democrat, Rep. Walz proves that gun rights are not always partisan issues. Walz Co-sponsored ATF reform legislation back in 2008 and was a lead sponsor in the SHARE Act,” Walz’s feature on the list reads. “While most congressional Democrats have jumped on the gun control train with both feet, Tim Walz and a few others have stuck to their guns.”

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to the media after touring a Planned Parenthood facility in St. Paul, Minnesota, with Gov. Tim Walz and Planned Parenthood North Central States chief medical officer Sarah Traxler, March 14, 2024. (Glen Stubbe/Star Tribune via Getty Images)

Walz has since changed his tune to champion gun control measures, and lost his high marks among the Second Amendment community. The NRA slammed Walz as a “political chameleon” in a statement provided to Fox News Digital on Tuesday after Harris officially announced him as her running mate. 

“Tim Walz is a political chameleon – changing his positions to further his own personal agenda. In Congress, Walz purported to be a friend of gun owners to receive their support in his rural Minnesota district. Once he had his eyes set on other offices, he sold out law-abiding Minnesotans and promoted a radical gun control agenda that emboldened criminals and left everyday citizens defenseless. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz cannot be trusted to defend freedom and our Constitutional rights,” Randy Kozuch, chairman of the NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF), said in a statement.

NRA DIGS UP HISTORY TO PUSH BACK ON KAMALA HARRIS’ CLAIM ON ‘ASSAULT’ BAN

Walz’s previous gun stances stand in stark contrast to Harris’ celebration in recent years that the Biden administration would take on the NRA and win, citing Biden’s work as a senator when he voted to ban semi-automatic firearms in 1994 as part of a major crime bill. 

“@JoeBiden has taken on the @NRA and won. He can do it again,” Harris tweeted last year, accompanied by a campaign ad celebrating Biden’s determination to “ban assault weapons.” 

Biden, while serving as a Delaware senator, voted to ban semi-automatic firearms in 1994 as part of a major crime bill, while the Democrat-majority House at the time passed the ban as a standalone bill. The bill ultimately was incorporated into the sweeping anti-crime package and required exceptions in order to pass, including a sunset provision. 

WHO IS TIM WALZ? MEET THE HARRIS RUNNING MATE WHO CALLED REPUBLICANS ‘WEIRD PEOPLE’

Sen. Kamala Harris speaks at an event in Las Vegas on April 27, 2019. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

The bill was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in September of that year. It enacted a 10-year ban on the manufacture, transfer or possession of “semiautomatic assault weapons” and “large capacity ammunition feeding devices.”

The law expired in 2004, when George W. Bush was president and Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress. 

‘THANK YOU, KAMALA!’: GLEEFUL REPUBLICANS RIP TIM WALZ AS GOP READIES TO BATTLE PROGRESSIVE DEM TICKET

Fast-forward to 2009, when Barack Obama was president, Walz was one of 65 Democrats in the House who signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder opposing any bans similar to the one from 1994, the Star Tribune previously reported. Holder notably was chosen by Harris this year to head up the vetting process of the pool of potential veeps before Walz was ultimately chosen. 

Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a press conference regarding gun legislation at City Hall on Aug. 1, 2024 in Bloomington, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

In 2017 and 2018, the then-congressman wildly changed his tune on gun control, joining fellow Democrats in their calls to tighten laws on gun ownership. Walz announced in 2017, following the tragic Las Vegas shooting, that he was donating the roughly $18,000 he received from the NRA to charity. 

Days after the tragic school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, Walz joined fellow Democrats in calling for gun control measures. Last year, the governor also signed into law universal background checks and a red flag order, which was slammed by Second Amendment groups. 

Walz wrote in an op-ed in 2018 that his views on guns are “evolving in some ways,” but that he’s “always been a reformer.”

“To finally come together to end gun violence, we’ll need a new approach. We’ll need to build a coalition we haven’t seen before: rural, urban, suburban and exurban folks; gun owners and gun-violence survivors; hunters and advocates and police officers and the young people who are stepping up right now. We’ll need a coalition of folks of good faith who haven’t seen eye to eye but respect the different ways of life in every corner of our state,” he wrote in an op-ed published by the Star Tribune in 2018. 

“That’s how we get things done in Minnesota: We come together. As a hunter, sportsman and veteran with a lifelong respect for guns, as a resident of greater Minnesota, a teacher, and a dad who just wants his kids to come home safe, I can and will bring together that coalition to end gun violence, preserve our ways of life and ensure that everyone gets home to their families safe.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub. 

Kamala Harris has choosen the most down-home dude in the Midwest as her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — the guy who ingeniously dubbed MAGA Republicans “weird.”

This development is likely giving a fierce case of heartburn to two other political rivals.

First, Gavin Newsom. No matter what our wavy-haired leader says, he’s had his eye on the Resolute Desk. Now, even if the Harris-Walz ticket doesn’t win, he’s got Walz ahead of him in line. Ouch.

And second, of course, is JD Vance, who must be downing Pepto-Bismol with glasses of buttermilk after hearing this news. About a week ago (which is approximately two millennia by the current political calendar) Walz dubbed Vance “weird.”

By today’s standards of labeling immigrants as “animals” and “rapists,” as former President Trump has done, weird sounds like it would be the least of insults.

But it has stuck like gum on the sole of MAGA shoes. Or maybe stuck to their souls. For some reason, it hit home, especially with Vance.

Since then, Trump has had to defend his pick, who can’t shake the image of being strange. Of course, his “childless cat ladies” remark didn’t help.

But the weird label has even Trump on the defensive.

“They’re the weird ones,” he claimed in a recent interview. “Nobody’s ever called me weird. I’m a lot of things, but weird I’m not and I’m up front, and he’s not either, I will tell you, JD is not at all, they are.”

That’s the “I’m rubber, you’re glue,” defense, popular in first-grade classrooms across America.

But if there’s anyone who’s not weird in this election, it’s Walz, which is what makes him such a terrific pick.

This guy. He’s pure Minnesota, in the best way. He was in the Army National Guard for 24 years. He coached football. He was a social studies teacher, on a Native American reservation, in China for a year, then at a public high school where he served as advisor to the first gay-straight alliance club.

Since then, he’s been a champion for LGBTQ+ rights, in a part of the country where there’s often little political capital for doing so.

He has signed laws protecting gender-affirming healthcare. He’s stopped book banning for containing gender issues.

He’s protected abortion rights. He’s banned so-called conversion therapy, the controversial practice of attempting to un-gay people through religion or other methods.

He is hands-down a progressive, even though he looks like central casting sent him to play “conservative grandpa,” though he’s only 60 — clearly a Minnesota 60 is an L.A. 80. No offense, but he doesn’t look young.

But he acts young — and is definitely young at heart.

Perhaps most endearing, he posts videos with his college-aged daughter, Hope, that are pure fun-dad and delightful to watch. They’ve got some real Fargo humor going. (Yes, I know that’s North Dakota. Close enough.) I just watched one of them at the Minnesota State Fair (Walz in a Springsteen T-shirt) that made me laugh out loud:

Walz: We’re going to get some food. Corn dog?

Hope: I’m vegetarian.

Walz: Turkey then.

Hope: Turkey’s meat.

Walz: Not in Minnesota. Turkey’s special.

Yes, it’s silly-dumb. But man is this guy wholesome. You want to argue about family values? Good luck bringing that to Walz.

Which is why this choice by Harris is so strong. Walz is just a good guy. Whether you ask in political circles or dig back into his life, he’s made a habit of standing for the values MAGA Republicans claim to love, but also love to squash.

Put him in a debate with Vance, and my prediction is that Vance will come across as shrill and small. Walz has proven with his leadership in Minnesota that you can have government that is kind and inclusive without the world falling apart.

Last year, Walz created a plan to “make Minnesota the best state in the nation for kids to grow up in.”

That is exactly what Vance claims to be doing — albeit by shoving kids and families into a tiny white Christian nationalist box.

Walz, by contrast, has given free school lunches to children; made college free for more people; and provided substantial state tax credits for families.

How ’bout them policies, Vance?

And when MAGA put IVF in their crosshairs? Well, Hope is an IVF baby. So Walz had this to say about it:

“Even if you’ve never gone through the hell of infertility, someone you know has. When Gwen and I were having trouble getting pregnant, the anxiety and frustration blotted out the sun. JD Vance opposing the miracle of IVF is a direct attack on my family and so many others.”

You may recall that we have yet to hear many specific policies from Trump or Vance, other than the promise to break apart immigrant families and deport millions of people.

By contrast, “We’re leading the nation on climate, gun safety, and protecting reproductive rights. We’re investing in education and ensuring no child has to learn on an empty stomach. We’re expanding voting rights, expanding workers’ rights, and reducing child poverty,” Walz said on Twitter (now X) last year.

Walz has what even Harris lacks — a real track record of doing the right thing successfully.

And, as a bonus, if a Harris-Walz ticket won, Walz’s lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan, would become the first Native American governor in American history.

So yeah, I’m a Walz-a-maniac, and there’s nothing weird about that.

GOP Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake announced Tuesday an event that will feature current and former Democrats supporting her campaign.

The coalition, called “Democrats/former Democrats for Kari Lake & America First,” was revealed after Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign announced its “Republicans for Harris” initiative, which held a press conference in Mesa, Arizona, and after Lake’s opponent for Senate, Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., announced his “Republicans and Independents for Ruben” coalition.

Lake called on members of the press to give her event, which will be held Thursday, as much coverage as the events for Harris and Gallego.

‘NEVER TRUMPERS’ COALESCE BEHIND DEM TICKET IN REPUBLICANS FOR HARRIS CAMPAIGN

“Hello Media— We see how you have given Kamala and her favorite liberal congressman Ruben Gallego so much news coverage of their ‘Republicans’ for Kamala/Ruben/America Last press conferences,” Lake wrote on the social media platform X.

“We ask that you give us equal coverage of our event coming Thursday. It’s called Democrats/former Democrats for Kari Lake & America First,” she continued. “Clear your schedule and we’ll let you know the time/place to meet us. I promise this will be eye-opening.”

Gallego announced on Sunday endorsements from 40 Republicans and independents, including officials and operatives who have shown support for other Democrats, in an effort to prove he has appeal across the aisle as he seeks to defeat Lake in November, according to The Arizona Republic.

KARI LAKE WINS GOP NOD, SETTING UP GENERAL ELECTION BATTLE WITH GALLEGO FOR SINEMA’S SEAT

Lake called on members of the press to give her event, which will be held Thursday, as much coverage as the events for Harris and Gallego. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)

At least 10 of these supporters for Gallego have also endorsed Harris for president, the outlet noted.

Republicans for Harris, consisting of “Never Trumpers,” also officially launched on Sunday, in an initiative that features several former officials, including former Trump White House officials Stephanie Grisham and Olivia Troye, as Harris’ campaign looks to rebrand her more moderately ahead of November’s presidential election against former President Trump.

Lake and Gallego will also face off in the general election in November. Arizona’s open Senate seat, currently held by outgoing Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, is rated as “Lean Democratic” by non-partisan political handicapper the Cook Political Report.